


Duel

by stateofintegrity



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:34:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26958883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stateofintegrity/pseuds/stateofintegrity
Summary: Over a game of bridge, the Winchesters inaugurate a battle they can't possibly win.
Relationships: Maxwell Klinger/Charles Emerson Winchester III
Comments: 10
Kudos: 8





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [L_M_Biggs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/L_M_Biggs/gifts).



> L_M_Biggs helped me with some of Klinger's kleptomania!   
> I would also like to gift it to AnniKat for always supporting Maxwell and I for liberating cats (and Majors)!

Toledo born and raised, Maxwell Q. Klinger knew how to fight when he had to. He never enjoyed it, but he was quick and scrappy enough (usually) to tilt the odds his way. He knew how to splint an arm, sew reasonable stitches that wouldn’t get infected, and how to get out quick when needed. He fought dirty when he had to (he was small and needed whatever advantage he could find); but he didn’t start fights.  _ Class warfare  _ was an entirely new game for him, however, taking place, as it did, over cake, coffee, and cards. 

At first, Maxwell, pretty in a watered silk skirt, thought that he had simply misunderstood.  _ All  _ of the Winchesters were educated, so he sometimes relied on context clues to understand what they meant; he tried to remember classical allusions so that Charles could fill him in later… but there seemed to be an unlimited amount. But, no. By the third hand, it was quite clear that Mr. Winchester (Max refused to think of him as Charles) was  _ definitely  _ out for blood.

Bridge made for a uniquely interesting battlefield, too. There had already been a few digs about “tricks” and “queens.” Rolling up his sleeves, bangles jingling a bit on his right arm, Maxwell decided he was done. 

He won the next hand not because he gave a damn about bridge, but because he got to shuffle… and he shuffled nice and slow so that he could also speak. He began slowly, paying too much attention to the cards. “I didn’t get an education,” he said. “As you can probably tell. And here’s what I wanna know. How did you learn how ta appreciate art and music and all that stuff nobody in real life even has time for - but you couldn’t see that you had a beautiful son?”

Charles shot him a shocked look that flashed  _ abort! Abort!  _ But Klinger just patted his knee - and eviscerated his parents - at cards and at life. 

Nothing phased him. 

Chilly insults were melted by his grin. Attempts at putting him in his place just saw him sitting in Charles’ lap. Innuendo was met with bald ribaldry. After just twenty-seven minutes, the Winchesters abandoned their crusade of contempt, their China, and their cake (which Klinger claimed by right of conquest). Once they were gone, Charles swept him up onto the card table and kissed the stuffing out of him. 

Kissing his neck, Charles lifted the man into his arms. “I am going to carry you up three flights of horrible, hideous marble stairs, Maxwell. I do not care if it ruins my back forever. Then I am going to take you in my boyhood room, in the center of my bed, until your throat positively aches with screaming my name.” 

Klinger smiled up at him and demonstrated that he was, as always, thinking about the man he loved. “Save your back, baby. That marble staircase is great for echoes, I bet. Let me suck you off?” 

When this bit of vulgarity, pretty to picture, went unanswered, Max had no problem reminding his beloved that these were the people who had exiled him to boarding schools and attempted to “right” him with tortures too horrible to be contemplated during their wartime experience. “You deserve to be happy, Charles.”

“You merely wish for them to hear how  _ you  _ make me happy. How very much I belong to and with you.”

“They had their chance. You’re my family now.” 

And on that cold and imposing marble (two servants’ stairs branching from the main) pretty, slender, smiling Maxwell brought him off in a symphonically  _ loud _ manner… and Charles found that no part of him could feel shame in the joy he found in the younger man. 

He did take the time to reassure him, however. “Darling, you do know that it is not this for which I adore you, correct?”

Maxwell was still on his knees, crinoline having cut patterns into his hosiery, still breathing hard. He looked up with knowing eyes that, for the moment, seemed to lack irises. 

“Not this  _ alone _ , then,” Charles answered that look, making him chuckle. “You are quite sure that you do not wish for me to carry you? You look quite shaken and it will be, if I am not mistaken, another instance of, how would you say it? ‘Spitting in their eyes?’” 

Klinger tilted his head, indicating that he did not follow. 

“Brides and thresholds and all that.” 

He brightened. Charles had borne him that way before, but it had been in cases of dire illness and injury… so that had taken some of the fun out of it. “I didn’t bring any white, but I think I have some blush pink I can change into.” 

The mention of white made Charles grip the railing as Klinger had hoped it would, his fingers pale as that expensive stone. They each had desires they liked to revisit; Charles treasured the memory of the moment that he had learned that he was Klinger’s first. “My dear, sweet girl, I will not prevail on you further, seeing as you are already on your knees, but I cannot help imagining something of a… something, ah, of a trade?” 

Klinger chuckled softly. “You never have to trade me, silly. Just ask. I’m crazy for you, you know.”

“I saw. At the table tonight. If there were civilian medals, you would have earned one for protecting me in that brave, sweet, unique way. Now, allow me, yes?” 

Max smiled into his shoulder, pleased at how disheveled the Major was as a result of their fun, but more pleased at how easily he lifted him and took him to his room. Charles still didn’t like the space (it had never felt like his) but Maxwell’s presence made it something he could at least enjoy reclaiming. 

They clung together in a massy poster bed with heavy coverings that shifted under them like green waves. “You didn’t give me time to change,” Max teased his lover, cupping his cheek. 

“The only blush I desire from you, my lovely bride, is the one shining in your cheeks.” 

Klinger lowered his eyes; he was far better at  _ this _ game than he’d ever been at bridge. “You’d blush too, Major, if it was your first time and you didn’t know what to do.” 

Charles thrilled at the little tremor he put into his voice; he'd have to remember to compliment him on that later. He had other compliments to give now - and not all in words. 

“I am so sorry, sweet girl,” Charles said as he undressed him, “that they are cruel to you.”

Klinger brushed soft touches over his sides. Those caresses… he’d never get enough of them or of the acceptance they conferred. Max made him feel beautiful, had taught him that every part of him was valuable, at least to his loving hands. “Doesn’t bother me a bit, baby. I got the better end of the deal ‘cause I got you. All those mean words won’t keep ‘em warm at night, I bet. And I’d be good to them if they’d treat you right.” 

“You are always good, my love. You are a force of good and of kindness and light… and I knew it the very moment I saw you in a yellow dress.” 

And he praised him the entire night, eloquent even inside of him, until Max wasn’t certain that he wasn’t being brought off by his speaking tongue rather than anything else. He looked so dazed and helplessly happy that Charles almost laughed but just held him tight and watched him feel and fall apart.

He repeated his work, slower, gentler, in the early light, and they left for home without staying for breakfast. 


	2. Chapter 2

Charles drowsed the lazy afternoon away, remembering, replaying, wishing he’d always had Max. Old pain retreated in the former Corporal’s presence. He was almost asleep when Maxwell took his hand and urged him up. “I made you something. C’mon, Major.”

It looked like afternoon tea in the study - or it would have to other eyes. Charles recognized the silver spoon, the sugar bowl, the saucer. “Darling?” He fought to keep the laughter from his tone. “I do not mean to criticize, but you have never made me tea before.”

“Are you real mad?”

He sat at the table and lifted the cup (it had come from their cupboard, at least) to his laughing lips. “Not a bit. Eager for the story, however.” He gestured. “Join me?”

There was a second chair, but Klinger knew that wasn’t where Charles wanted him. Climbing into his lap, he explained his light-fingered acquisitions. “They stole your peace from you, Major baby. They made you think all those awful things.” He kissed the bridge of his nose, a quick familiar gesture he often made when they woke up in the morning, a way, Charles suspected, of reassuring himself of his continued presence. “So, everytime we go there and they’re mean, I’m going to steal more stuff.” 

Charles threw his head back in a laugh. The tea service was porcelain, antique, and brought over from England. The missing saucer would be  _ incredibly vexing _ to his parents and nigh impossible to replace. “My light-fingered love, you are a  _ marvel. _ ”  _ My marvel.  _ And with Maxwell’s dark head resting on his shoulder, it really was the best tea he’d ever had, too.  _ You add sweetness to everything, my pretty Corporal, to all parts of my life.  _

Snuggling against him, Klinger said, sleepily, “You know I started with the best piece, right, Major baby?”

“Max?”

“I stole the very best thing they ever had first. You."   



	3. Chapter 3

Since she lived with her brother and her brother-in-law, Honoria quickly became aware of Klinger’s campaign against her parents. She attended bridge nights, thereafter, just to see him make them back down. When her voice cooperated, she even helped him. Charles just sat back and basked in their affection, their dual defense of him. He’d never had protectors like these and their care went a long way toward erasing old scars and healing old wounds. Their love pierced the darkest places inside of him like beams of light and he shined, made more handsome by virtue of what they felt for him and what he returned tenfold. 

What Honoria did  _ not _ tell her brother was that  _ she _ was the one who helped Klinger to recognize and find the  _ Kama Sutra _ in her parents’ library - and liberate it. 

“I d-do not want to k-know s-specifics,” she assured him, eyes laughing. “But i-if you talk Ch-Charles into anything f-fun, I will buy y-you a new d-dress. The m-man  _ needs _ to l-loosen up a little.”

On a particularly bad night, they left so quickly that Maxwell did not have time to don his fur coat (a real one, unlike the one he’d worn in Korea) - or so Charles thought. But Honoria and Klinger kept exchanging looks, kept laughing, until they were safely back in their own kitchen. Then out from the coat came… a cat. 

“You stole  _ the cat _ !?” 

“I t-told him he c-could, Ch-Charles, don’t be m-mad. He  _ loves _ it.”

It seemed to love him, too, perching on his shoulder and nudging him with its head to claim ownership. “I don’t understand my feelings about you,” Max told it in the voice he reserved for cute animals. “You are so very ugly with your flat, flat face and your pug nose, but I love you  _ so _ much.”

Honoria gestured to her brother to say:  _ See? He needs it. _ Then she said, “Ch-Charles makes that awful f-frog expression when he’s upset and y-you adore him.”

“Hey!” said the Major.

Max’s eyes danced as he looked at him. “No, no, she’s onto something. When you get in your moods, I just love you more.” 

Caught between the two of them, Charles smilingly took the abuse - and rejoiced in these lifelong allies that made his life - every second of it - worthwhile. 

End!


End file.
